Landscape

Texture

Feb 23

President’s Day found me one mile up the Surprise Creek drainage near Stevens Pass. I’ve been up this valley once before, but that was during the summer. I’ve wanted to return but I hadn’t really considered returning in winter. I’m not sure why- it actually enjoys pretty easy year round access due to its proximity to the small “rail yard” near the mouth of the BNSF Cascade Tunnel’s west end. For some reason I expected to be alone as if this was my brilliant idea and mine alone. The six other cars present proved me wrong.

Fresh snow and no rain still make for a pretty good outing so away I went. My lone previous visit during the summertime only provided me with a rough familiarity of the hike. As a pleasant surprise, the trail was very well marked due to a stamped down snowshoe trail. The valley is largely within the Alpine Lakes Wilderness and has some pretty big trees to admire along the way. After a mile of travel, the trail begins to skirt the run outs of several avalanche prone side slopes. I don’t think the first couple run outs are that hazardous but beyond this point, the exposure steadily increases. This outing was also an opportunity to try out some time lapse possibilities with my newly purchased GoPro Hero 3 Black camera. The first large clearing (where two opposing avalanche run out meet in the valley bottom) had lots of interesting mounds and textures and was a perfect place to stop and explore.

Someone was a genius and figured out that you can easily modify an Ikea kitchen timer to become a panning base for time lapses (here’s the link) so I set up my GoPro to capture a 30 minute / 180 degree time lapse. The settings I used on my GoPro were the 7mp (wide) resolution and 2 second shot interval. I also used the ProTune option and tweaked the white balance using their CineForm Studio processing software. I have to admit that I’m pretty happy with the results:

While my GoPro was doing its thing, I wandered around the clearing to study the various landforms. It was untracked and pristine, and the large boulders buried underneath the snowpack created a variety of pillowy mounds fanning out around a huge boulder.

Skies were very flat and gray so sunlight was not going to help bring bring out the detail of the snow’s surface. I already knew that the shots I was taking would require Nik’s Silver Efex 2 plugin for conversion to black and white. It seems a bit silly to convert a photo of basically a black & white landscape into a black and white photo but plugins like Nik (or Topaz’s Black & White Effects) just seem to extract the fine detail out of the snow’s surface. I was a bit frustrated during my attempts to capture what I was “seeing”; the overall stillness and serenity of my surroundings, however, tempered those frustrations. After my GoPro time lapse had completed, I packed up and headed further up the trail. Soon enough, I recognized a few signs to let me know that I had traveled at least as far as my lone summertime visit. I spied a couple potential photos but judged the set up for them to be too hazardous. The lateness of the afternoon was also catching up with me so it was time to turn around.

There’s a nice, tall waterfall just around the corner from the trail head that I wanted to visit but ended up bagging it. Some other time (maybe even this winter). Upon reviewing my photos from the trip, I was most drawn to the photos which showcased the texture that fresh snow possess. These certainly weren’t the shots I was expecting to find during my outing but they were a nice challenge to capture. Winter is turning the corner and these kinds of opportunities are winding down and that does sadden me a little. Snow has such a magical quality to it and its ability to completely transform the land is amazing. I’m already looking forward to my next opportunity, whenever and wherever it may be.

Narrow your focus

Feb 11

I visited Artist Point and Huntoon Point this weekend but was shut out by the weather yet again. Since I have no photos to share, I decided to write this post which I’ve thought about for a little while now. One bit of photographic advice that you’ll hear about in landscape photography is shooting with a telephoto lens. Basically, you’re focusing (no pun intended) on some specific portion of a larger scene. I’ve read this advice numerous times before but I’ve never seen this concept illustrated so here’s my attempt to do just that!

I’ve selected three different examples where I’ve come away with some telephoto photos. For each example, I also have some wide angle shots which will provide some overall context. Let’s start with a photo I took a couple years ago on my first trip to Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. This waterfall is located along the Johnson Canyon trail and is situated a bit downstream of the Upper Falls:

This photo is taken at a 24mm focal length (on an APS-C sensor) and a photo that can stand on its own merits. This shot is actually the first one I took when I came upon this scene. As I’m prone to do, however, I sit down and study the scene in front of me. Eventually, I was struck by the complementing colors of the rock and long exposure trails of the white water. Through some iterations, I eventually came across my final scene:

Now let’s look at the original scene with a rough overlay of the area that the telephoto shot covers:

Next up is photo which has been one of my most popular. It was taken one spring at the Mount Baker Ski Area in the North Cascades of Washington State. As you can see, I started out with a wide angle shot of this weathered snag with Mount Shuksan in the background. On the right hand side in the background is a peak which has the local name of Hemispheres:

This photo was taken around 11am and the sun was still rising in the sky. The slopes of Hemispheres attract many backcountry skiers and snowboarders and, in this light, you can see why. The slopes are full of rollovers and undulations. Eventually, I was attracted to one small patch of trees and the combination of light and shadows at the transition to a steeper section of slope. The final scene was this:

Once again, let’s look at the overall scene along with an overlay highlighting the telephoto shot’s extent:

My last example also comes from the Mount Baker Ski Area vicinity. Last spring, I hiked into an overview of the White Salmon Creek valley and Mount Shuksan. I created this panorama and converted it to black and white:

Would you believe I got two additional photos out of the area represented by that panorama? Let’s look at the two additional shots:

Finally, let’s look at the panorama one more time along with the overlays for the two telephoto shots:

So there are three examples of a “wide” landscape scene hiding additional compositions in plain sight. The only thing missing is your vision and your telephoto lens. The key is being able to recognize when a scene in front of you has that depth and finer details and that’s something that I believe you’ll develop with time. Hopefully this post has shed some more light on the concept of using telephoto lenses in landscape photography!

Top Ten Photos of 2012

Dec 22

It’s the end of 2012 and time to look back upon the previous year and pick out some favorite photos. They primarily are personal favorites but some of my choices were well received but others who viewed them. As for the year itself, I branched out a little bit, both geographically and subject-wise. I was able to pursue wildlife photography a little more with trips to Boundary Bay in British Columbia for the Snowy Owl irruption and my first ever trip to Yellowstone National Park.

1.) Big Four Mountain – South Fork Stillaguamish River Valley

Taken from a spring outing, I was hoping to capture some avalanches coming down the impressive 4,000 foot high north face of Big Four Mountain. This conversion to black & white using Nik’s Silver Efex 2 worked well.